It’s ironic that after all the malevolent plans foiled by Thor and the rest of the Avengers, the one time Loki truly brought death to his own people was completely accidental. At least, that’s the impression we get from a recent Reddit post, which argues that the trickster made one careless decision back in the climax of Thor: Ragnarok that ultimately doomed the last of the Asgardians – or at least, half of them.
User OfficialBaconGamer spawned some debate when they opened a thread with the following title:
“Loki by taking the space stone in Thor: Ragnarok unknowingly caused the extinction of his race, if he left it there Thanos wouldn’t go for their ship therefore the asgardians would’ve lived.”
For those who don’t recall, in the third act of the God of Thunder’s last solo outing, Loki’s charged with retrieving the demonic Surtur’s fire crown in order to cause the fall of Asgard, stopping the villainous Hela in the process. By this point, Thor’s adoptive brother has started to make amends for his wicked past, but sadly, old habits die hard. So when Loki happens to pass by the Tesseract on his mission, he can’t help sneaking it out of Asgard before the whole place goes to hell.
Fast-forward to Avengers: Infinity War and Thanos has invaded the lone ship containing the remaining Asgardians and killed half of its passengers. Why? To acquire the Space Stone that’s contained in that damn Tesseract. So, while “extinction” might be too strong a word for the outcome of Loki’s folly, there’s no doubt that he brought a lot of trouble and tragedy to Thor and his fellow travelers.
Of course, this Reddit post has been met with a couple of counterarguments, namely that Thanos would’ve come for Loki anyway after the deity failed the Mad Titan in the events of The Avengers. According to that line of reasoning, the fact that the Space Stone was in Loki’s possession at the time of the attack simply allowed the despot to kill two birds with one stone. Still, it’s hard to imagine a character as driven as Thanos taking such a detour in his mission just to settle an old score, especially when he had so many opportunities to kill various Avengers throughout the film but usually chose not to.
Assuming Surtur wouldn’t have destroyed the Space Stone during the devastation of Asgard, Loki’s actions in Thor: Ragnarok probably can’t be blamed for the eventual “Snappening” that wiped out half the universe. Still, it’s hard not to hold the former big bad of the MCU partly responsible for the massacre that occurred on that spaceship. May we all continue to pray for Korg.